Heard the word CHRISTMAS in a radio commercial yesterday. How scary is that?You know I hate the holidays. As mercenary as it sounds, I miss getting presents. *sigh*

Geez, can the end of summer be any busier? Same old sad song of not enough time in the day to get all the stuff done that I need/want to accomplish. Of course, playing on my pet sites isn't helping me - I am so addicted to Flight Rising. And, Beast Keeper has a special Kitty-Quest going on until Sept 30. Like I told one of my friends, I am so close to getting that kitty that I can taste the cat hair in my food. Gah.

At least I did clean off part of my deck today. Too many spiders around the front door - they are now history. I hate spiders. Oh, had a tree frog fall on my arm when I opened the door earlier in the week. Scared the crap out of me - it was cold and clammy. I let out a manly 'YAH' yell and whipped my arm back. Good thing he landed on the inside door because he would have been unhappy if he got in the house, although the cats would have been very happy. I have a couple tree frogs that hang out by the door every summer because bugs are drawn to the light. I think it's cool.

Let's see...Had a rough couple weeks. Mostly because I had a bad case of poison ivy in the webbing between my little and ring finger on my right hand. Couldn't do very much because the blisters were so HUGE. Everything is just about dried up and the scabs are in the process of flaking off. It is so nice to be able to type properly again. For about a week, My fingers were spread and I couldn't hit the letter 'p'.My ty[ing was innacurate, annoying, but [retty funny to read.

In the interest of not grossing you out, I just put a link so you can see my blisters covered with Ivarest. I figured out a way to keep my fingers spread while I was sleeping to help them dry. Daytime was easier, as I was wrapped in a bandage.

What else, what else....Spent most of August raising caterpillars. Yes, you read that right. Eastern Black Swallowtails. Soo. Coool. Very interesting life cycle. Barb found the first caterpillar on her parsley plant. She called me over to see if I knew what it was or if she should squish the thing. It looked familiar to me, so I used my google-foo and found them. Check out this site for better pics and EBS info. I learned some stuff.

At one point, there were seven caterpillars munching away on the parsley. If you poke them, they try to scare you with these orange feelers and release a stinky smell. Not that bad, but it is very strong. Kind of reminded me of those citronella plants. He's telling me to GO AWAY in this pic.

I actually went to the store to buy them more parsley, and transplanted some queen anne's lace weeds into a pot for them to eat. Nothing was too good for my cats. hahaha.Eventually, all but two disappeared while we weren't watching. That's the thanks I got for spending money on the gol-durn things. You'd think they would have stayed near the food, but they must have crawled quite a distance. We found this guy on the foundation wall, about 15 feet from the parsley.

I caught another crawling to escape about 17 feet away, put him in a bottle and took him home. He didn't do much that evening, and in the morning he was 'in the position'. Stayed like that for over a day - I thought he was dead, but was afraid to poke and bother him.

FINALLY, the next morning I found the cocoon. I was annoyed because I wanted to see how it was done.

So, now he's on my windowsill. I will probably put him outside in a sheltered spot for the winter because I think he needs to feel the weather changing. Here's hoping I will have cool butterfly pics for you next year.

I'll try to post a little more often in the future. ...but, don't hold your breath. hahaha!toodles.

[Crossposted from DW. Apparently, I like to spread my boring Spam all over the Internet. And, I paid for both sites, so I should use them like a mad monkey. Comment at either place, I'm easy.]